Brahms - Piano works

Murray Perahia pf

Sony Classical 88697 72725-2 Buy now

(79’ · DDD)

Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, 
Op 24. Two Rhapsodies, Op 79. Piano Pieces, Op 118; Op 119 

It may be 20 years since Murray Perahia’s last Brahms release but the wait has been gloriously worthwhile. For here, once more, is a pianist who achieves the highest musical quality with the most economical means. Time and again Brahms’s potential for strenuousness and opacity is clarified with a superfine musical intelligence and technique. The opening Aria from the Handel Variations is unusually thoughtful and considered, and in the sciolto of Var 14 he conveys all of Brahms’s riotous brilliance while characteristically remaining in superb control. This is a performance for those poor souls who, amazingly, take a dim view of Brahms’s keyboard variations.

Translucent voicing and texture characterise Perahia’s way with the Op 79 Rhapsodies and most of all the Opp 118 and 119 Intermezzos. Perahia achieves a burning clarity (even when the music is marked piano and sotto voce) at the start of Op 118’s concluding Intermezzo, -bringing a wealth of concentrated detail and an impeccable line and impetus to this heart--stopping epic in miniature (if the paradox be allowed), a mirror of the inner desolation that afflicted Brahms both early and late in his life.

There are, of course, other approaches to these works, yet has there been a pianist since Lipatti more finely attuned to every harmonic and rhythmic subtlety? This disc, finely recorded, forms a vital part of Perahia’s crowning return after several years of debilitating illness.